Volcatia grinned.

Today was turning out great.

"This is pretty disorienting," said Carl, looking up at the ceiling covered in lava.

"Mm." She looked down at the floor covered in lava.

"How does the water even stay in place?" he asked, pointing to the water that filled the narrow space between floor and ceiling. "Shouldn't it be evaporating or something?"

"Dungeon shit."

"I don't know, I can't imagine anyone trying to get through here." Carl poked the weirdly solid water in front of them. "Not even enough room to stand up between the lavas."

Carl was great like that.

He knew a little bit about things, but he seemed to think that meant he knew everything.

He was smart, yeah, maybe even Smart, but there was something really fucking stupid about not asking for explanations when you needed them.

"They're definitely gonna try," she said with total certainty.

She didn't even need to check.

People turned into idiots as soon as they saw treasure in a dungeon.

Yeah, dungeons were rare, and yeah, there were all the legends about powerful treasures, but this was too fucking much.

Maybe she should get one of the cores to open entrances near some other cities.

Then she'd have more idiots to laugh at.

It wasn't specifically that she laughed at them because they were idiots, it was that they were idiots, so they did things that made her laugh.

"One of you shuffle this room in somewhere near the front," she called out.

The room of lava and water disappeared and was replaced with a more boring one.

"It has been done!" announced Ignis.

"Okay, next room," said Volcatia. "I'm gonna have to get more water next time we need it. Didn't think I'd end up using so much."

She tapped her chin.

What sort of room should they make next?

There were a lot of lava and fire rooms already.

She was getting bored of those.

"Where'd you get so much of it from, anyway?" Carl asked.

Subodiosa giggled. "Ooh, she was filthy!"

"The ocean," Volcatia replied.

Yeah, the ocean was okay.

Water wasn't her favorite, but that was just because she'd never been great at swimming.

Not that it mattered anymore for a variety of reasons.

"So you just went to the ocean and filled your inventory with water?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

The screen to the side was finally showing the good part of the huge dark path room she'd made earlier. The idea was that it was a darkened room with a dozen narrow paths leading towards some brightly glowing stick she'd gotten at Ocexius. Maybe it was valuable, maybe not, but who cared. The paths all started from different rooms and weren't quite wide enough to turn around on, and they converged slightly too far from the platform the stick was on to allow people without stats to jump across.

"This one," she said, pointing to a woman who was hanging back now that the light of the magic stick had made all the competitors aware of each other.

Volcatia might not be the smartest, but that didn't mean she lacked cunning.

She wished she'd made better use of it earlier in her life though.

"You really like traps that pit people against each other," Carl commented.

"They're so much more fun to watch!"

One of the people, a man wearing Char nobles' clothes who shouldn't have set foot inside a place like this, turned his head from side to side and started talking to the others.

"Fuck, I wish I knew what they were saying," Volcatia muttered as some sort of argument broke out.

"He's saying he's some kinda lord," Carl said. "Some lore-y, role-playing nonsense, blah, blah, blah, give him the…moon glass wand? Is that a thing?"

Volcatia shrugged. "Sounds like the name of some magic shit to me."

It was a little surprising that Carl could understand the other language so well.

Then again, he was Carl.

There were things he wasn't good at—like fighting—but when it came to knowing random, useless skills—like fishing—he seemed matchless.

On a different path, another man—this one wearing clothes that were almost as raggedy as the ones Carl had been wearing the first time she'd seen him—started scrambling forward, nearly losing his balance, while shouting something or other.

"No, not gonna give you the thingy, lots of cursing—"

"Thanks for not using profanity needlessly, Carl," said Subodiosa.

"Uh, yeah, no problem, partner," Carl said.

"There he fucking goes!" Volcatia called excitedly.

She needed to curse extra any time Carl obviously avoided it in order to balance things out.

She didn't care whether things were balanced most of the time, but in this case she really fucking needed it.

She also needed a drink.

Fortunately, she had her Inventory skill now, and she'd stocked up.

She left it open for convenience when she was 'hanging out', as Carl liked to refer to wasting time.

She pulled a decanter of something dark and red out and took a long pull.

This was an afternoon for not being entirely sober, she decided as the man dressed in rags stumbled forward and then dove onto the platform. He let out an increasingly crazy-sounding laugh as he whirled around and began grappling with the next person to reach him, trying to throw him off his path and into the dark pit below.

"Go, rag man!" Volcatia cheered, raising her wine pitcher.

"I think you might be right," Carl said, pointing to the woman Volcatia had indicated earlier. The view grew wider, showing her more clearly. "She's gonna try to wait it out until there's only a couple of 'em left and try to knock 'em off from behind. Smart."

"Problem is she's small." Volcatia took a swig. "She needs to time it just right and aim low."

"Yeah, which means she might fall off herself. I bet the spirit walk for this really sucks."

In many cases when Volcatia didn't understand something, she would ask for an explanation.

She might not be the smartest, but she wasn't an idiot.

The exception to this was when she didn't care.

Carl had been talking about some 'spirit walk' idea for a while now, and, while she didn't know what he meant, she really didn't care.

He was a great friend, but he said too much weird shit.

It would take her weeks to sort it all out.

What the fuck was a 'guy', for example?

She knew it meant a person from the way he used it, but was it just any person, or did it have a more specific meaning?

More importantly, why didn't his lips move with the words he was saying?

She cared a little.

A tiny amount.

Not enough to bother with.

She probably wasn't going to be in Onyxfell for long, and she'd rather spend the time having fun with her friend than solving word mysteries.

----------------------------------------

"Boring."

Volcatia was bored.

She'd watched the dark path room play out a few times, but nobody had successfully managed to carry out the glowing stick.

She took a longer drink from her latest jug of wine.

The first woman had come close, but then she'd been overconfident and fallen off the path on her way out.

One of the cores had saved the trouble of retrieving the stick to reset the room for future viewing.

This wine was good.

Next had been a man, some kind of guard by the look of him, who pulled out a gladius and waved it enough to unbalance several of the others, enabling him to pass by, but then he'd somehow slipped, or tripped, or something, falling over backwards and knocking the other remaining man off as he did.

Then…

Yeah, that's just how it was.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

She sighed as she reached the end of the pitcher.

There had been a time when she didn't always get bored so easily, but that was—

"Wait a minute. Core, aren't we supposed to be able to make monsters and stuff now that we have treasure?" Carl asked.

Volcatia's eyes widened.

----------------------------------------

"No, bigger. Bigger! Yeah! Now more fur. More. More. More. More. Perfect!" Volcatia trotted over and gave the giant ball of fur a hug. "So soft! Carl, come feel how fucking soft this is!" She jumped up and landed on top of it, sinking deep into what might make an amazing pillow if she didn't have an immediate need for.

"Hm. Pretty soft."

Volcatia woke up a minute later, but she wasn't drunk.

She'd just needed to close her eyes for a moment because.

"Okay, now we send it out to play with the idiots!" she called out. She leaned back and.

Volcatia woke up a min—

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" screamed a man's voice. In the Char language.

She frowned.

The man continued screaming loudly, yelling more words that she didn't understand, and he was soon joined by.

There was no more screaming.

She smiled and curled up on her pillow.

What a great!

----------------------------------------

"Vol. Wake up."

Volcatia groaned.

It was too early to get up.

"Vol, your fur monster died."

"Urgh…"

Volcatia was experiencing post-drinking sickness.

It happened whenever she decided to get drunk, and she hated it.

Drinking was fun.

Why did it always have to stop being fun?

"You gonna be okay? Did they really implement hangovers?"

"Urghhh stop talkinggg," Volcatia grunted as her head began to throb.

Once in a while, it was worth the trouble to endure this state of mind.

She sometimes enjoyed a return to being justifiably angry at the world.

This was not one of those times.

She crackled slightly, and the world was a little more pleasant.

She was never going to drink again, she decided at that moment for what was definitely the first time.

Volcatia opened her eyes at last.

She was surrounded by fur.

Lots of fur.

After rubbing her eyes for a short while, she rolled out of the forest of fur and onto the ground nearby, landing on her feet.

"Okay, good nap." She yawned. "What're we doing?"

Carl gave her an odd look. "You good now?"

She squinted from the too-bright light of the dungeon. "Yeah? Just took a little nap."

"Well, no, you were awake for a lot of it," he said slowly.

"Was I?" She patted herself down, trying to dislodge some of the more stubborn fur.

"Yup. Fur monster was chasing people around—"

"Intruders, Carl," said Subodiosa.

"Right, that. It ate a few too, and you were laying on its back yelling gibberish most of the time."

"Huh."

"Scared the heck out of 'em. Pretty funny to watch since the fur was covering you. They all thought it was the monster yelling."

"Mm."

It did seem like that would be funny to see.

She regretted missing it.

"You fell into traps a few times. Had to get the cores to pull you out."

Volcatia turned around to look at the dead fur monster. "How'd this happen?"

"Some guy with a glowy sword. He got eaten but managed a double K.O.. His legs are still hanging out there." Carl pointed, and indeed there were a pair of boots just visible past the edge of the bloodied, brown fur. "Heck of a fight."

She stretched her arm. Probably the one she'd been sleeping on. "Anything else interesting happen?"

"Uh… Some other guy got that moon staff thingy out of the dungeon. Lot of people—"

"Intruders!"

"—seemed pretty excited about that. You were right, someone tried that big lava-water room."

"I knew it!" Volcatia threw her hands into the air. "And?"

"Well, your fur monster was chasing him, so he just dove into the water to escape and died immediately. Kinda melted from the heat."

"Oh. That's boring."

"What'd you expect to happen?"

"I don't know, something interesting? What day is it anyway?"

"Still today. Getting late, actually." Carl yawned. "You were really clocked out. Almost twenty seven now."

Volcatia frowned. "Haven't slept that long in a while. Almost forgot what it was like."

She was forgetting something else though.

She knew she was forgetting something.

"Feels good, doesn't it." Carl yawned again. "I've been getting great sleep while I've been in here. Almost too good."

Volcatia began to slowly tap her foot.

She hated when she forgot things.

"Think I'm gonna check on Mina again and then crash," he announced. "You're welcome to keep hanging out in the dungeon, or if you wanna hang out up in the workshop, that's cool too as long as you're quiet."

"Mm." She considered it, but she was still trying to figure out what it was that she was forgetting.

It wasn't plans, because she didn't have any.

It wasn't an object, because there were none that she'd worry about forgetting.

It wasn't a person for the same reason.

Volcatia lost interest.

Whatever the fuck it was, it couldn't have been too fucking important.

Fuck.

"I'm gonna go out for a while." She looked up at him. "I had fun hanging out today though."

She tried out the phrase to see how she liked it.

Trying new things was something she always liked.

The phrase itself was…

It was okay.

Maybe she'd use it again, maybe she wouldn't.

"Yeah, I had a blast even after you fell asleep." Carl rubbed his beard. "Got some good dungeoneering in. It's a lot more fun when you stop trying to be super clever. Gotta get back to basics."

"You gave away treasure!" Subodiosa said in a sulking tone.

It seemed to Volcatia that the dungeon core had gotten even more annoying today somehow.

There was a period of time when she thought it was getting calmer, but then it seemed to intensify its efforts to be annoying.

Or distracting.

She eyed the core for a moment, but ultimately she didn't care.

"We had to get people—"

"INTRUDERS!" the core shrieked.

"—to come in somehow after you were melting them or whatever."

"You're saying this is my fault?!"

"Core, c'mon. You've been getting on my case about everything all day. Why can't you go back to being cool?"

"What? I thought we were partners, Carl. Now you're—"

Volcatia left.

She moved to the arena.

Battles began here at fourteen and ended at twenty six. The eleven fighting platforms hosted up to ten small battles or a single momentous one. Tens of thousands of spectators could fill the seating areas.

Now, however, it was nearly empty, save for a couple dozen workers tasked with repairs that night.

Volcatia sat down on the wall behind the topmost row of spectator benches and let her feet dangle off while she watched the repairs.

It was bittersweet.

She didn't know why she was here.

She'd guessed when she had to be here, and this wasn't that time.

But that time was probably different now somehow.

Fuck, this was getting confusing to think about.

She still had a lot of time to waste.

She'd had a fun day of wasting time in the dungeon, but she was probably done with that now.

There were only so many times she could watch idiots do the same stupid things before she stopped enjoying it.

Also it was difficult to keep thinking of new traps.

She was confused by Carl's reactions though.

He was a father, but then he laughed along with her when the idiots threw themselves to their deaths.

She couldn't imagine her own father laughing like that.

People were dying, after all.

It took a certain type of twisted person to laugh at that and then also encourage it.

Or just someone who didn't care about anything but her own amusement.

Volcatia wasn't sure when she'd gotten so fucking depressed, but she needed to fucking stop.

She always became sad when she came here alone.

She was always alone now though.

That it was by choice was a small consolation.

Okay, but now she really needed to stop being so fucking gloomy.

It wasn't fun.

It wasn't interesting.

She'd already done it too many times before.

She was a doer.

She'd decided to stay until the Hero's Cup to see whether it would be fun, but maybe she wouldn't.

It was probably going to be really fucking boring and make her regret wasting time like this.

The past few days had been fun hanging out with Carl, but there was going to be an end to that.

She'd found interesting people before, and they always became boring.

Sometimes they were boring all along, and she just didn't notice right away.

Other times they just wanted too much from her.

Volcatia stood up. "Enough of all this fucking sulking," she muttered.

This was the time to find something to do.

The problem was that she'd done everything already.

She'd watched battles in the arena.

Boring.

She'd watched more than a few races at the tracks.

Interesting at first.

Boring now.

She'd found and fucked a few people who had great legs.

She wasn't in the mood for fucking now.

She'd learned a great new skill.

It was still great, but the newness had gone and it wasn't fun anymore.

She'd listened to gossip.

Char hero this, Scorpio Fulminis that, occasional mentions of the Imperatrix.

Boring.

She'd eaten.

Not boring, but she wasn't in the mood for that either.

She'd drank.

Eh.

She'd made a friend.

Now that was the weird one.

Carl was interesting, but it wasn't just that he was interesting that had drawn her to him.

There were plenty of interesting people.

Maybe not many who had ten million of a shit stat like Strength, or seemed to personally know and be able to talk to the Regina Daemonum, or owned a fucking dungeon, but…

Okay, there probably wasn't a single other person who could do any of those things, but more than that, he still wasn't there when she watched him.

The first day when she'd seen him, she thought maybe it was temporary.

The second day she'd thought he might have a skill that blocked hers.

From the third day on, she was confused.

He was too fucking oblivious to be using a skill.

The fact remained, however.

He was a presence that she couldn't account for.

He was fulmen, and he created tonitrus wherever he went.

He was unpredictable, and that was what made him the most interesting.

Except he wasn't.

He was too fucking boring now.

He just wanted to hang out in his workshop and wait for that Mina girl to recover, not doing anything in the meanwhile.

Even when they were killing idiots in the dungeon, he'd leave every so often to go check on her and then return saddened.

Why?

Volcatia didn't fucking understand it.

Mina wasn't his daughter by his own admission.

She'd thought he was something like a bodyguard initially, which would explain some of his abilities, but no, he wasn't.

Weird.

And annoying.

When he stopped worrying about that girl, he was fun.

She sighed.

It would be easy for her to resolve the problem by one method, but she'd said they were friends.

This was one of the reasons why she didn't like having friends.

She hated to be restrained.

She hated it more than almost anything.

They were friends though, and now she was restrained.

Confined.

There were some things she couldn't do.

There were some things she was supposed to do.

Fine.

Friends.

Fuck.

It had been a long time, but maybe she could use this friends thing to resolve his problem in another way.

Then maybe he'd become more interesting.

More fun.

She'd need to waste a little time first though.

She moved to the top of the imperial palace and pulled her reclining chair out of her Inventory skill.

There were those of exceptional strength who guarded the grounds to stop people from intruding.

She didn't care whether they saw her.

What could they possibly do?

It was her city.